Researchers are trying to discover the genetics of some of the smallest animals in existence.
With a grant of $1.66 million from the European Research Council, experts will soon begin examining these small (but biologically fascinating) creatures at an unprecedented scale. Now, with a roughly $1.66 million grant from the European Research Council, experts will soon begin examining these small (but biologically fascinating) creatures at an unprecedented scale.
According to a September 5 announcement, curator of herpetology at Denmark’s Natural History Museum and University of Copenhagen assistant professor Mark Scherz will spend the next five years on a new project called GEMINI (Genomics of Miniaturization in Vertebrates). Scherz and his team will use GEMINI to study how animals such as flea toads (a type of toad), dwarf pygmy fish, bumblebees bats, and dwarf pygmy gonby fish have managed to pack all their biological elements into small packages without sacrificing health or efficiency. Experts could then learn how the genetic improvement and efficiency manifests itself in some of the most overlooked species. These animals have, in essence all the senses and organs that their larger relatives and ancestors had, but they are packed into a small package. Credit: Mark Scherz
“Large animals often grab our attention. Scherz, in a Thursday statement, said that he found it fascinating that nature had managed to miniaturize and pack the same vital organs into a frog less than a centimeter long. “We know so little about the process today, and I’m determined to change that.” This simplification is largely due to the removal of “junk DNA”, but some changes also occur in other genes. Scherz is hoping to learn more about this last category over the next few decades. Now, however, experts know this isn’t always the case, for pretty clear reasons.
“Animals cannot just keep growing larger and larger. Scherz said that at some point the physiology (exchange of water, heat and oxygen) as well as gravity will set a limit. In order to have a trend towards increased size, there has to be phases of body size reduction. All the same biological functions keeping the seven-millimeter-long amphibian alive can be found in humans, elephants, as well as blue whales–the Earth’s largest animals. But the flea toad pulls all that off at a fraction of the energy.
“Everyone’s attention is on blue whales and elephants. Ask any child and they will tell you the biggest land mammal, the largest marine animal and the biggest dinosaur to have ever existed. “It is a far more impressive feat to have
everything in a twenty-three-tonne blue whale compressed into a seven millimeter package.” “It is a far more impressive feat to have
everything in a twenty-three-tonne blue whale compressed into a seven-millimeter package.”
Speaking with Popular Science through email, Scherz says he believes his findings will see a lot of applications across the biomedical, bioengineering, and biotechnology industries.
“Bioengineering and biotechnology are constantly looking to nature for inspiration and demonstration of what is possible, and in a time where technology itself is undergoing extreme miniaturization, looking to nature’s primary examples of what complexity is possible at remarkably small size is going to be key.”
[Related: A new evolutionary theory could explain the mystery of shrinking animals.]
